Pick any ten words,
Eight of them are yours,
Honestly born in the midst of meditation
On her desires and your fulfillment of them.
The other two are the reasons you’ll read it again.
Maybe at the turn of an unfamiliar phrase
You will feel as you felt
For that moment during your last intimate conversation
When her head turned, her gaze
Caught briefly on a passer-by,
Someone you didn’t recognize.
She returned her eyes to yours
As if  they never left,
And you couldn’t ask---
Either you didn’t know how,
Or you were afraid of the answer.
But that instant when you lost her
Made that conversation different
From every other one
Because it made you wonder, as you did
When you were dancing in the bedroom last Monday night.
Once, at least once,
She turned to watch
Her own reflection in the mirror.
How curious and challenged you felt
At her obvious pleasure,
How compelled you felt
To step in front of those eyes
That looked back just as intensely,
And held her for a second
In a gaze that forgot you existed.
And you wonder why you feel that
Your favorite passage in this poem
May have been conceived in that moment.